American Life In The Summertime #34 - You're Not A Backpacker Until.....

You're not a backpacker until you have:

• lived on peanut butter sandwiches for an entire week
• used the arm of your sunglasses to spread it because that's the closest thing to a knife you have available
• in an effort to stop people staring at the spectacle of you spreading peanut butter on your sandwiches with your sunglasses, immediately put those sunglasses back on your head without remembering to wipe off the peanut butter, thereby providing an even bigger spectacle than the one you were attempting to avoid
• crept downstairs to sleep in the TV room of the hostel because it's full for the night & you can't be bothered going to the next one, which is like a whole 20 minutes walk away
• then rinsed under a outdoor hostel sink as your "shower"
• laughed at language idiosyncrasies like the fact that in Lithuanian, "thank you" sounds like "ah-choo" and "you're welcome" is "bless-you"
• booked an overnight bus to your next destination to save cash on accommodation, been stuck sitting next to Polish lesbians who spend the next 14 hours destroying one of the only remaining fantasies you have, vowed never to do it again, and immediately did it again because your remaining transport budget has long since been eroded by beer
• had a dodgy 3 euro Spanish haircut from a student hairdresser in Madrid, conducted entirely in sign language
• marvelled at the Dutch practice of riding the worst, most decrepit bikes imaginable, chaining these bikes to light posts to avoid theft with elaborate locks which cost far more than the bike, and then wrapping the locks in comfy woollen socks to avoid scratching the paint on their crappy bikes
• drank warm beer off a supermarket shelf because the train just got in and you just checked into your hostel at 11pm and that's all that is open, and hot Belgian girls want you to join their drinking game
• been woken up by the worst snorer in history in a crowded dorm room & used your towel to flick him awake from across the corridor so you can be in bed "asleep" when he wakes up to see what happened
• been strangely glad of those times sitting alone in hostel bars reading the local newspapers, for otherwise you would never have discovered that local teenager George Garratt of Somerset has now legally changed his name to: "Captain Fantastic Faster Than Superman Batman Wolverine Hulk And The Flash Combined"
• messed up the complex "cheers" ritual in so many countries & accumulated so many misfortunes ("bad sex for 7 years" etc) that you wonder how you will ever find a woman again: "Well, I'm flattered, but I didn't look someone in the eye when I clinked glasses in Germany. We can try.....I guess....."
• followed someone around a strange town who "has been here before" and "knows exactly where we are", only to confiscate the map from him to discover he was reading it upside down (Brucey - Salzburg)
• been silently pleased at the reaction from American girls when you tell them that you always wear thongs in hostel showers ("thong" is g-string)
  Her: "Why, are you worried about hidden cameras, like in Big Brother?"
  You: "No, just careful about hygiene. Sometimes I even let my friends borrow them if they forgot their own"
• suddenly lost it in the middle of a crowded train platform at funny foreign place names: Wankdorf, Muff, Cockfosters, Ars
• wasted another hour trying to think of highly amusing questions to ask foreign rail staff about these places: "Excuse me, can you help me find Ars?"
• encouraged by the response, filled the remainder of the hour until your train leaves asking further questions of the poor helpful foreign rail clerks: "Is Ars popular here?" "Have you ever gone there?" "Do you like Ars?" "Yes, I heard it can get pretty crowded" 

This last game particularly kept me amused for many hours in Swiss, German and French train stations. And so I hope that this has kept you amused for a few minutes at least, as we remind you once again - 'Til next time: take care of yourselves.....and each other.